GENERALIZED BLOCH-SIEGERT SHIFT IN A SQUEEZED VACUUM

The time evolution of the atomic dipole moment of a two-level atom damped by an off-resonance squeezed vacuum is studied. Our results are valid for arbitrary detuning between the carrier frequency of the squeezed vacuum and the atomic transition frequency and show that the atomic dipole moment can oscillate with two dominant frequencies. These frequencies are shifted from their central values by an amount which is proportional to the degree of squeezing. We show that this shift of the frequencies is the exact equivalent of the optical Bloch-Siegert shift in the case of the ordinary vacuum damping without the rotating-wave approximation.